Chufi

Dutch. An onion here and there, but definitely not everywhere and almost no garlic! Which makes me think that stamppot (in this case, potatoes mashed with greens, carrots or well-cooked green beans), is a possibility.

I'm not even going to try to figure out how those american flours and their protein contents relate to the flours I can buy over here.... That said, I have been using an Italian 00 flour for pasta, but recently I was out and used regular flour. I definitely noticed a difference while making it, the dough was a bit tougher, coarser, not as soft and pliable.

Elie, I used a pack of those vacuum-packed chestnuts that I found in the back of a cupboard... you know how that sometimes happens.. I'm sure that with fresh roasted chestnuts the flavor would be even better. But I thought it was really good as it was!

Jen, your sugarbread looks lovely! Chihiran, your speculaas looks beautiful. Did you use ready made speculaas-spices, or did you make your own? Achevres, yes, I think you are right. I don't think the soft white sugar exists in the US though? And I wouldn't use the dark brown sugar for the gevulde koeken. The pastry is too delicate for that. Just use regular, fine sugar instead. (Basterdsuiker is very finely ground and the fact that it sticks together, adds moistness to the pastry. A real pastryperson should chime in and tell us how to achieve that with regular sugar!)

I'm thinking that baked quinces would be lovely in a trifle.

If you want to celebrate New-Years the Amsterdam way, head to Nieuwmarkt around midnight. This area is known as Amsterdam's Chinatown, and the Chinese residents have the best fireworks! Lots of people gather with their bottle of champagne and a coupe of glasses on the square. Noisy, crowded, but fun!

I made the chestnut soup yesterday: I have to confess I made some shortcuts here. I had some really good guinea fowl stock, so I used that instead of making the soupbase as described in the recipe. Also, I made the soup with milk instead of cream (but drizzled some cream in right before serving). I was a little short on chestnuts so I pureed all of them instead of sauteeing some for the topping. But this was utterly delicious. The tarragon is a very unusual and intriguing contrast of flavor. The soup is creamy and rich and luxurious. If I was hosting a Christmas dinner this year, this would be my starter for sure! Here are Michel Bras' stuffed onions. The blob on top is the creme fraiche, which sort of solidified, which I haven't seen in any of the other pictures of this dish. I wonder what happened there? they were delicious and my guests raved about them! The filling was much lighter and more delicate than I expected. Something truly magical happens during those 4 hours in the oven!

Kevin, I had forgotten about that cabbage! Thanks for reminding me, it has been way too long since I made it!

Well, at first I was going to say: poor ICuoco . because, I thought: the Dutch don't dine out on New Years. The young & hip might spend the evenng in a bar or club, the not-so-hip of all ages stay at home, and go to / have a small party at home. At least that has been my experience. (all my life, i have been in that second category I thought most restaurants are closed on NewYears. But today, what do I see in the paper but numerous ads for Christmas and NewYears dinners? Most of them were from the high end restaurants attached to the fancy hotels (Hilton, Amstel, etc). On the other hand, I walked past some smaller restaurants earlier this week and already saw the sign "closed for Christmas and NewYears". So while I can't give you any first hand advice about where to eat on NewYears Eve, my advice is simply to think about where you would like to eat anyway, and then call them and see if they are open and still have a spot. By the way, a hint when you call: NewYears Eve is called Oudejaarsavond here, which literally means OldYears Eve. January 1st is called Nieuwjaarsdag - New Years day. So be sure to make it clear that you are looking for dinner on December 31, not January 1st Good luck and let us know where you end up!

I also vote to keep going. I don't cook as much as I'd like for every month, but I love following these threads and they are among my favorites on eGullet. And I'm looking forward to this month! My Bolognese supply in the freezer is gone, so that one is on the list for sure, and hopefully some (to me) lesser known dishes as well.

Dave, I'm enjoying your blog very much and I have to say your pictures are gorgeous. You have a real eye for composition and I love those little clusters of pics together, they really tell a story.

Stupid question coming up.. where are we going next month? I can't find it.. I'm planning a dinner party for Sunday and was thinking of going the Italian way with our next region.. edited to add: the Search function can be your friend, when eGulleters from overseas are still asleep Emilia-Romagna, here we come!

Made some pretty fantastic beetroot ravioli tonight. On Monday, I had cooked down some onions.. not quite the EG onion confit, just a huge pile of onions cooked in a bit of olive oil for hours until soft, then browned, with some rosemary, sage, garlic & thyme added. Had that as a pasta sauce on Monday which was pretty good.. Today I diced up some cooked beetroot really really small, mixed together equal amounts of beetroot and the onion-stuff, added some ricotta and parmesan, and used this to stuff ravioli. Served with a chive/lemon butter. good!

Those are really beautiful! I'm going to make a speculaas version of those next week for our office Sinterklaas party. I'll be baking 150 of them .. I must be mad But I'm already looking forward to the heavenly smell that will fill my house!

IC you are too funny! I can just see you at the Gall & Gall talking to the salesperson. Even I have conversations like that with salespeople all the time ("you want to make that yourself? Why?" ) so I can imagine what it felt like for you! They must have thought you were doing your very best to integrate As for the taste, yes, paint thinner, that does ring a bell. Did you try and taste the brandewijn straight? it's not really good stuff. Although my elderly aunts drink it straight as an aperitiv, they usually mix it with a teaspoonful of sugar. I do think that maybe you did not cook it enough. While the endversion should be boozy, it should not really taste of paint-thinner. Using rum, or wodka, instead might be a good option. Anyway, I'm glad the pears were a success!

Use it as a gratinsauce for slices of potato, or make it into a cheesesauce for a pasta gratin? Add some sauteed leeks for a bit of green amidst the pale ugliness

Rachel: Thank You. never leave eGullet, please!

Thanks you Rachel, for giving me, on the other side of the planet, the experience of a real Thanksgiving. I wish I could have tasted your food.. but your words are almost as good!

I love hoisinsauce with duck Hoisin!

Parmhero, that applepie looks fantastic!! I made banket today. a traditional Dutch December-pastry. It's almond paste wrapped in puffpastry.. which sounds simple enough.. except I made both the almond paste and the pastry myself. It was a lot of work but worth it!

Well said. I think part of this fallacy comes from the standard American dinner template: meat, starch, and vegetable. oh come on, let's not blame america for this. i mean, in just the countries i've visited the last few years, england, france and spain all have traditionally relied heavily on the meat-starch-veg trio. ← And the Netherlands too. I feel that even vegetarians stick to the trio, at least supermarkets seem to want them to do so, by selling vegetarian stuff that looks like meat and can easily stand in for the meat-part of the trio. You know, vegetable burgers, vegetarian meatballs, etc.

I made almond paste today for some Dutch pastries. Pictures here

Banket Sinterklaas is back in town! Besides presents in your shoe (see my posts from last year..) this means that’s it’s time for one of the best parts of Dutch Cooking: December-pastries. The one I’m going to show you now hardly needs a recipe. It’s more an idea, really: almond paste wrapped in puff pastry. In December, this pastry is shaped in to a large S (for Sinterklaas) or a log. A couple of weeks later, you find the same pastry ready for Christmas: shaped into a circle (Christmas wreath) or again as a log, but this time decorated with glace cherries and candied orangepeel. I like the Sinterklaas (plain) version best. For some reason, this pastry is only around this time of year. It’s called 'banket' (banketstaaf = the log, banketletter = the letter, banketkrans = the wreath). Banket also means pastry as in fine pastry, the kind a patissier makes. You can buy this everywhere – bad banket (margarine pastry with artificially flavored ground up beans inside) and really good stuff at expensive bakers. But with only 2 ingredients, I thought it would be worth trying to make it myself. Now I know some people who might make this themselves, but they use storebought puffpastry and storebought almond paste. Today I made it all! I made Julia Child’s simple puff pastry. I made the almond paste: equal weights of almonds and sugar, ground together mixed with egg (1 egg for each 125 grams almonds + 125 grams sugar) Ready. Put it in the fridge so it can harden a bit. This is supposed to keep for weeks and the flavor will improve, but I used it rightaway. Now, maybe because I used the paste rightaway, or because my almonds were not of the best quality, or because I am used to commercial almond paste which no doubt has some artificial almond flavor mixed in most of the time, this did not taste almondy anough to me. So the part that got used in the pastry, I mixed with a teaspoon of amaretto di saronno (because I was out of almond extract). I also mixed in the zest of half a lemon. Now, it's hard to give exact measurements. This is a 200 gram piece of pastry, with about the same weight of paste. Roll the pastry into a narrow rectangle, place a sausage of paste on top, carefully roll up so that the seam is underneath. it's easiest to do this right on the baking sheet. There is no way you can take a decent picture of two puffpastry sausages like this. So you get my view in the background to distract you! Pastry is brushed with an eggwash. Bake in a hot oven (200 C) for about 25 minutes. Now, this did not go completely as planned. My pastry cracked, some of the filling seeped out, and the logs came out much too flat. I'm not really sure why. I think maybe the pastry wasn't sturdy enough. Or, the oven wasn't hot enough. At times like this, I realize I am really, NOT a baker Afterwards, I took some storebought puff pastry from the freezer and baked a small log for comparison. So this is how it should look: and this is how the home-made version looks: Ofcourse the taste of the homemade version is infinitely better than the one with the storebought pastry, but it doesn't look as good. I mean, it looks good, but it doesn't look right. If anyone ever attempts this with homepade puffpastry, I'd love to hear how it works out. note: I have said it before, but this is why some recipes don't end up in RecipeGullet. I don't want to put recipes up unless I am absolutely satisfied with them. Very often, when I make things for this thread, I make them for the first time!

Milagai, that's really interesting. I have no idea why this type of drink has gone out of fashion here (the same with 'anijsmelk', milk flavored with aniseed, although that is slightly more common and you can buy cubes to make instant anijsmelk in the supermarket). I have noticed, when I travelled in the US, that American's seem to be much fonder of spiced sweets (drinks and pastry) than Dutch people. Cinnamon, for instance, seems to be really popular, and when it's used in pastries, it's used in abundance! have you read Andrew Dalby's book Dangerous Tastes - the Story of Spices? I just got it and haven't read it yet, but it seems like the book for you!

mark, where in Amsterdam did you get the truffle, and was it good? I made ribollita yesterday, Tuscan bean & kale soup. gave me a chance to do something else with the Dutch winterstaple, kale! This was a vegetarian recipe, and then I went and sauteed the vegetablebase in lard but I'm sure it would have been equally delicious had I just stuck to the olive oil! picture here in the Tuscany thread